Well, makes no matter. Ah’ll keep thee right. Now then … how many fellars do you think are in the Alumni Association?

Gosh, I dunno sarn’t … meybee 2,600 … and some of them are women.

An’ how many of them is active alumni corporal?

Meybee 500 sarn’t …

And how many of them is gonna give money to buy that old libary over yonder.

You mean that old building behind the booshes sarn’t?

That’s the very building corporal … take time, now.

Hmmm, I don’t think anybody’s gonna want to buy that old building sarn’t … oh, they may want that fine big ‘un up on the hill there but …

Are ye daft lad … the big ‘un is no for sale … it is already bought and paid for by the village …

I’m talkin’ about the wee building behind the booshes.

Why would anyone want that old building sarn’t?

Iggerant booger … I’ll tell thee … the lads and lassies that went to the school here … they want to buy their old libary.

Why sarn’t?

A ‘cause of their fondness for the old thing … it’s all that’s left … and when they come back to this place …

Who will come back, sarn’t?

The old yins, the cadets, ye idjiet, that’s who … and they will come … come from all over … Tennessee and Kentucky … Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama … and the Carolinas … Chicago and New York … and they’ll come from far away places like California and afarther … meybee even the Central Americas …

… and when these folks get here, with their kin and all, they will have come home … to a home just as much as any was … and they will walk up to this old libary … and they will be sad … and they will be happy … they will sit with her … and they will know her … and, she will know them …

If you say so sarn’t … I’m fascinated … but sarn’t, do you think they can do it?

I dunno lad … this old building’s seen a lot in a hunert years … she’s been the pride of the place … but, she’s had her disappointments too … the last years were the roughest … she’s seen all her mates brought down to rubble ‘cept one … through it all she’s waited quietly … hoping … just meybee … hoping they’d come along … and take her back one day … dunno corporal … she’s a grand old lass … she needs a home … a home that will love her.